


Filled With Fire and Smoke

by bette (ferns)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Supernatural Elements, Changelings, Gen, Kelpies, Magical Realism, Seelie Court, Sidhe, Unseelie Court, Witches, almost forgot those, basically everyone is a monster okay, but they aren't monsters they're fae, leonard snart is an asshat, like e v e r y kind of fae, nature spirits, oh yeah, so what else is new, there's a difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 15:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7273498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/bette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cisco is a changeling, Barry is a metahuman, Caitlin is sort-of a witch, and it all goes to hell in a handbasket anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Filled With Fire and Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> There are some typos. I'll fix them later.

Cisco knew from the moment he could open his eyes that he wasn’t human. It was just something ingrained deep within him, a  _ knowing  _ that he wasn’t like everyone else. But it wasn’t until he was older that he realized what he actually was.

Fae. A word whispered on the corners of the playground, used to describe anybody different than what kids thought was the norm. It was used often even to describe people who had less magic in their body than a grain of sand. But for Cisco, it fit.

Dante was the one to tell him, fully, what it meant to be a fae in a family of humans. It meant that he was a changeling, someone  _ unwanted,  _ someone that the fae hadn’t wanted so the humans had to take it. Cisco wasn’t even really his brother, Dante claimed. His brother had been taken away by some Unseelie force and was now living underground or in some different dimension, far away from his parents and from the people who loved him.

Cisco didn’t think that it was such a bad thing, being a changeling. At least it meant that he wasn’t  _ actually  _ related to Dante. He only thought that for a few days before he started listening to the neighbors.

_ “Poor dear,”  _ they’d say about his Mama.  _ “Another one of the family that’s destined for the graveyard.” _

_ “I hope it doesn’t turn out like the last one. I heard that they even set wards up this time! Of course, I would never report them for something like that, especially after what the other one did.” _

_ “I’m thinking about moving away-someone might have cursed them. There’s no telling what sort of devilry that little faery will get up to when it learns to use its powers!” _

Cisco hadn’t been the first changeling in the Ramon family. And when he questioned his parents about it, he got the same answer: “Don’t ask us about him ever again.”

A little bit of ‘investigating’ in the attic uncovered photo albums of a boy Cisco had never seen, eyes startlingly similar to his own and dark hair cut short enough to barely brush the bottoms of his ears. The first changeling.

Cisco didn’t ask again.

* * *

Magic and science-it’s fascinating how they work together while repelling each other at the same time. Polar opposites driven together. Cisco thought it was incredible, and while Dante started to work harder and harder at his music, Cisco began to go the more scientific route. Unusual for a fae, especially for a changeling, but Cisco didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was going to make a difference. He wouldn’t be like that nameless changeling stuck in the photographs in the attic. He’d make his family proud.

At first Cisco thought it would be his acceptance into several prestigious scientific and mathematic colleges, but they were too busy with Dante’s concertos to notice the letters. Next he thought it would be his graduation, a year and a half ahead of schedule. Of course they came, supporting him and cheering him on, but the next day it was back to Dante this, Dante that.

Cisco didn’t even bother telling them that he had applied for a job at STAR Labs, but he did when he needed a ride to the interview. Dante drove him, poking fun of his chosen profession the whole way, and Cisco silently vowed to make sure that he got the job.

(He did.)

The minute that Cisco saw the beginnings of the interior of the particle accelerator, he demanded to know where the structural designers were so that he could talk to them personally. Well, he didn’t  _ actually  _ demand, he just gaped at the way the layers upon layers of magic fused seamlessly with the futuristic technology, everything held down like the moorings of a ship.

It more than made up for that asshole Hartley Rathaway. Ugh. Sirens. And Cisco’s skin had been itching the entire time that he was nearby, which might have meant that he was allergic. At least it was an excuse not to talk to that pompous dick again.

Days beld into weeks bled into months bled into a year, and suddenly everything was ready to go. Suddenly they were about to set of a particle accelerator, and they were going to change the world.

The minute the switch was flipped (metaphorically speaking, of course, since it wasn’t really a switch), Cisco swayed on his feet like the ground had lurched beneath him. He suddenly felt very lightheaded, the lights too bright and the room too noisy. Everyone was celebrating and cheering and generally having a good time, but Cisco just wanted to get out of there. He couldn’t help but feel in the pit of his stomach that something was about to go very, very wrong.

And then… It did.

* * *

Bartholomew-er, Barry Allen is human, there’s no doubt about that. But he’s healing fast, too fast, and his heart is beating at speeds the monitors can’t register. So Cisco builds new machines and starts to wonder if maybe he should begin enchanting them to work better.

Caitlin doesn’t ask why he doesn’t do magic outside of the simple spells and chants she asks him to perform. She knows he’s a changeling, and on some level he knows she can relate. Caitlin may be completely human, but she knows some magic, and even standing near her when you’re sick can make everything feel just a little bit better.

He knows her family doesn’t approve-her mother and her stepfather and her aunt. They don’t think that nice young ladies should be dabbling in the arcane, although they were glad that she chose a normal profession like being a doctor. Caitlin didn’t tell them that she used magic more often than not to fix up the various injuries brought to her before the particle accelerator exploded. And even now, she spends most of her time keeping Barry alive through sheer willpower alone.

When Barry wakes up, he doesn’t question the way that Cisco accidentally catches all of his papers before they hit the floor with magic. He’s grateful for that-most people are okay with fae in theory, and Ms. Iris West (who also makes Cisco’s skin itch for some reason) assured him that Barry was pro-magi, but you never really knew. And lots of folks would probably panic if they woke up after a nine month coma and were immediately faced with a faery.

Barry doesn’t ask what kind of fae he is the whole time. Not once. Cisco’s oddly charmed by that-Hartley did, almost immediately, and turned up his nose when Cisco said that he didn’t know. Caitlin had asked when she got drunk, but Cisco had kind of been expecting Barry to say something the minute that he laid eyes on the engineer.

And then Barry comes back to STAR Labs with his eyes wide with excitement and fear, and Cisco gets that same feeling he did before the particle accelerator went up. A feeling like the whole world was about to change, and the only way that Cisco would have any part in it was if he just let it happen. At least this time there was no dizziness or nausea.

* * *

 

Metahumans. They aren’t fae, obviously, but there’s some sort of magical element about them. There has to be. Clyde Mardon has all the personality traits of a storm spirit, an  _ anemoi thuellai _ _ ,  _ just without the translucent body and lightning eyes. (Which is something that Barry has, by the way.)

The next few times that Cisco meets Iris West, she drops hints about why she likes him so much. None of them really click until Barry laughs at him and repeats her name with emphasis.  _ “Iris.  _ C’mon, man.”

Cisco facepalms. “Saints, I’m an idiot.”

Iris laughs with him and pulls a lovely purple flower that seemed to sprout up from nowhere out of the crack in the sidewalk between her feet. “It’s fine. I don’t really like to broadcast it much.”

Cisco nods. “I understand.”

Because, really, he does.

Eddie is something too, some sort of fae. Cisco didn’t know what kind he was at first and he didn’t ask-he’d had enough painful experiences with those kinds of questions himself to know how it felt to be on the wrong end of them. But in the end, he didn’t have to ask.

Watching over the traffic cams as Eddie shifted into a huge golden-furred wolf (and he must have been half dog or something, because his shoulders were broad and his paws were big, and that wasn’t what wolves looked like. Cisco knew because he had read several books on the subject, about how lycanthropes didn’t actually need to shift underneath a full moon, it was just a survival strategy, and-) that lunged at Barry-who dodged the attack easily-send chills down Cisco’s spine.

Mick Rory and Leonard Snart; they’re fae too, it’s in their files. But Cisco’s never really gotten the chance to properly read them, even when he was scanning for weaknesses after Caitlin was taken. Later, though, he finds out, and wishes he hadn’t.

* * *

Hartley presses his hands against the glass of the Pipeline cell, which Cisco momentarily feels bad about putting him in. It’s not that Hartley doesn’t deserve to be locked up, because he totally does, but the Pipeline is for  _ metahuman  _ criminals. Not asshole sirens with cool tech that they knew how to use.

Iron Heights had a whole building dedicated to fae who’d broken the law. Wards and magical dampeners and the whole shebang. But… Cisco catches Wells’s eye.

No. What was Cisco thinking? Of course Hartley belonged down there. It was stupid to think that he didn’t. Besides, Cisco was supposed to be lying down. He had had a concussion, and even though Caitlin had charmed his brain to heal it didn’t mean that it hadn’t caused damage that he needed to sleep off.

Down below in the Pipeline (Cisco had been watching on the cameras), Hartley sheds his glamour and slams his talons against the reinforced glass.

* * *

_ Oliver fucking Queen  _ is the Arrow, the masked vigilante, and a human to boot. Cisco had been  _ so sure  _ that he was some sort of elfin fae. Maybe even a (very very very well glamoured) centaur. But a  _ human?  _ Not even an ounce of faery blood running through his veins? Well. That was more than a little unexpected.

His whole team is made up of humans, in fact, although they all know at least a little bit of magic. Felicity knows the least in the form of her technology charms, while Diggle knows mostly offensive and defensive spells. Oliver seems to know the most, almost all of them in what seems like an uncanny mix of Russian and Mandarin. Cisco really doesn’t want to know where he learned those.

They all seem to know he’s a changeling, know he’s a fae. Oliver asks what he is and doesn’t seem to believe him when the answer is that he doesn’t have an iota of an idea. Maybe it’s because most people don’t use the word ‘iota’ when they’re talking about the fact that they’re a changeling.

Anyways. Oliver (he’s on a  _ first name basis  _ with Oliver Queen!) doesn’t ask again.

* * *

Cisco had suspected that the Reverse-Flash was a fae. Maybe even on top of being a metahuman. It was certainly possible, of their resident teleporting pixie Peek-a-Boo was anything to go by. There was lots of evidence towards it, even if Cisco didn’t know what  _ kind  _ of faery they were. Like the way that they seemed to be able to appear and disappear in an instant even without using their speed to do so. Or how when they had kicked Barry’s ass at Christmas the sky had gone from cloudy to foggy when they were making their escape.

But standing there, watching Wells advance toward him with a menacing gleam in his suddenly blood red eyes…

The first words out of Cisco’s mouth weren’t the ones that he was expecting. “You’re fae. And a meta. A-a meta-fae.” He swallowed thickly. “How were you in two places at once, the night that we trapped the Reverse-Flash here?”

Wells’s mouth split open into a thin smile, revealing suddenly sharp teeth. Cisco’s skin started to itch. “You’re very clever, Cisco. I’ve always said so. Surely you started to realize that something was off? Even a changeling such as yourself would know a glamour charm when they saw one. Even if it was spun by somebody as powerful as me.”

Cisco backed up, shaking his head. The world was spinning, he had  _ that feeling  _ again, this was wrong, this was all wrong. “But-but you’ve been helping Barry,” he said desperately. “Teaching him how to-how to-”

“Go faster?” Wells finished, tilting his head to one side. He sneered. “Means to an end. Of course, I was expecting that the Barry Allen of this timeline learn how to use magic along with his powers, but I know more than enough for the both of us.”

“Why did you kill Nora Allen?” Cisco whispered, blinking back tears.

Wells scowled. “I meant to kill Barry. I was  _ there  _ to kill Barry. But I was hit-a spell, something to slow me down. And then the child-Barry was gone, and I had to settle for what I could get.” He curled his lip up, eyes flashing an even deeper scarlet than before. “She was surprisingly difficult to take care of. Mr. Allen doesn’t appear to know that he’s half Sidhe. I always did wonder why I wasn’t able to control him the way I was almost everyone else.”

Cisco trembled. His magic-why couldn’t he feel his magic? It had been humming underneath his skin for so long… He didn’t even know what he would have done with it. The only spells he knew were Caitlin’s healing ones and the few that Ronnie had taught him-ones to find lost keys and other everyday objects, spells to microwave dinner or popcorn perfectly without the use of a microwave, things like that. Nothing offensive or defensive. “I-I can help you.”

Wells shook his head, and suddenly Cisco felt all of his limbs locking in place. “You’re smart Cisco. But you’re not that smart.” His hand start to hum, vibrating at super-speed. “Do you know how hard it has been to keep all of this from you- _ especially  _ from you? Because in many ways, Cisco, you have shown me what it is like to have a son.”

He paused and shook his head, and Cisco knew with sickening certainty the gist of what he was going to say next. “Please,” he whispered. “You don’t have to-”

“That’s why I’ll hope you’ll forgive me,” Wells continued as if Cisco had never spoken at all, “for feeding when it’s over. I haven’t had anything since Mr. Woodward’s death. I’m growing weaker by the second, and changeling blood will give me what I need.”

Wells’s hand plunged down into Cisco’s heart, and his magic exploded with a sound like a hundred fireworks going off at once.

* * *

The pretty woman at the bar leaned closer to Cisco and he scratched at the back of his hand. She laughed when she noticed. “It itches, right? Happens all the time when a fae isn’t using glamour, since they start picking up on all of the other fae in the area.”

He chuckled nervously. “I was starting to wonder if my friend Eddie had given me fleas.”

The two laughed together as Cisco started to get buzzed on the faery mead they sold at the bar. It was one of the few things that got fae drunk, as well as the  _ only  _ thing that got Barry drunk at all. It was pretty hard to craft, which was why Cisco had been surprised to find that this bar made it.

“C’mon,” the fae- _ Lisa- _ said, holding out a hand that Cisco took. “Let’s get out of here.”

He should have known that he wasn’t that lucky.

Still. At least this time when he got within spitting distance of Leonard Snart, he was able to work up the courage to look  _ through  _ the glamour that shrouded his body (especially his blue parka). When he did so, Cisco swore at the sight of a cloak of white feathers tossed over the thief’s shoulder, unmistakable even as they were shrugged off and draped over a chair.

Cisco looked back at Lisa, who smiled prettily at him and pulled off her own leather jacket, which turned to snowy fluff before his eyes.

“Oh, come on!”

Rory smiled a lipless smile. “Come on, changeling,” he rumbled, “aren’t you gonna look at me too? ‘M starting to feel left out over here.”

Against all his better judgement, Cisco peers through his glamour too, and what he sees makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and his skin itch twice as much.

Rory’s shape was vaguely humanoid, but with a thick reptilian tail and taloned paws. A heavy crest of horns rested on his head, and thick rocky plates overlapped on almost every inch of his body. In between them were dripping miniature rivers of magma, dropping onto the floor and sizzling with every step Rory took. Cisco shuddered at the pyromaniac’s glowing red eyes and craggy teeth as they were bared into a savage grin.

“What’s the matter, changeling?” It rasped. “Don’t like what you see?”

Cisco swallowed.  _ “Cherufe,”  _ he muttered. “But I thought…”

“Not all of them are giant serpents that live under the ocean,” Snart dismissed with a smirk. “And Mick here has quite a temper when he doesn’t get what he wants. He gets hungry, too.”

Cisco shivered in disgust at what the criminal was suggesting, casting a small glance toward where Dante was lying on the floor.

* * *

Ray Palmer (damn, why are the cuties and the rich guys always the superheroes/vigilantes?) is a fae. Cisco knows from the moment that he lays eyes on him. He still hasn’t forgotten Lisa’s words of ‘advice’ about how being around other fae makes a faery’s skin itch. But Cisco still hasn’t figured out why it starts happening every time he steps into STAR Labs.

(He hasn’t figured out his strange dreams, either.)

“Do you two need hotel recommendations for the night?” Caitlin asks, and Felicity shakes her head.

“I’ll be fine going back to the same place I slept last time,” Felicity assures them.

Ray smiles widely, so bright it almost hurts Cisco’s eyes. “And the river is good enough for me!”

Silently, Cisco checks several faeries off of the list in his head that Ray may or may not be. Nothing fire-related, surely. Merrow? Selkie? A siren, like Hartley? It would explain how cheerful he always is. All the sirens that Cisco has ever met have either been assholes like Hartley or overly peppy.

It also explains how oddly damp his hands are. Not sweaty, but… 

He only really finds out when Ray invites him down to the river to clean up the fried bees because “it’s littering, and I know how much it sucks to live in poisoned water.”

“So, you’re a changeling?” Ray says, shrugging off his shirt and setting it down on a rock. He does the same to his pants, but leaves his boxers on, something Cisco’s grateful for. When Cisco opens his mouth to defend himself, Ray shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. I mean-I get it. I’m a changeling too.”

All that comes out of Cisco is a small “Oh.”

Ray grins at him and dives into the water, somehow disappearing even in the shallow water. Cisco watches a dark-furred head break the surface about twenty feet away from the shore and it all clicks. “Oh,” he repeats. “I thought you were a siren!”

Ray whinnies with laughter from the waves and dives down.

It takes him about five trips to get all the bees back up, shifting between dog and horse and human the whole time. When he leaves the water, Ray seems  _ brighter  _ somehow.

Kelpies are weird, Cisco decides. Even if he’s only met the one.

* * *

“You could have had everything you wanted,” Wells-no,  _ Eobard Thawne  _ snarled, eyes glowing red. “You could have had everything you ever wanted!”

Barry smiled at him, growing stronger by the second as his half-magic blood began to sing. “I already do.”

Wells-Thawne let out a serpentine hiss of frustration as he pulled his yellow cowl up over his head. “Not for long.”

He lunged forward, body dissolving into mist as he dug a set of shadowy claws into Barry’s shoulder. Barry howled in pain, streaking away to stand at a safe distance, legs apart and ready to run. Wells-Thawne (Cisco really needed to remember that it was Thawne) charged again, still in mist form. Cisco knew why; Barry couldn’t land a single hit on something as insubstantial as fog, but W- _ Thawne _ could still easily hurt him in that form.

Which meant that Cisco had to do something. He had to help. He had to stop Thawne.

So for the first time, instead of trying to fight his magic, Cisco embraced it instead.

Something inside of him burst, and the Unseelie (so Dante had been right, all those years ago, the  _ thing  _ inside of Cisco mused. He really was Unseelie. No matter. The ideal that one was good and one was evil was outdated at best and outright false at worst) court’s prince raised a hand and launched a dark black blast, a spell of unknown origin that had never been used and never would be used again, right into the center of Eobard Thawne’s chest.

The vampire screamed, back arching, which gave Barry just enough time to press his hands against the sides of Thawne’s head and send a burst of Sidhe magic directly into his brain.

Cisco took a deep breath and looked down at his hands.

“Oh,” he said. That was really all that he could say. He’d just used some high-level magic that he had no idea how to control. Cisco also had no idea if he would ever be able to do something like that again. He doubted it. “Oh, saints.”

“Uh, Cisco?” Eddie said nervously from somewhere off to his left. “What the hell was that?”

“I-I don’t know,” Cisco was forced to admit. “It just… It just  _ happened.  _ I don’t know how. You have to believe me, I don’t… I don’t…” He took a deep, shaky breath and buried his face in his hands. “Oh,  _ saints,  _ I don’t know.”

“Um, Cisco?” Barry said nervously, and Cisco flinched. He didn’t want to look up and see how much Barry hated him, how much Barry wished he were dead because he was so powerful, so hard to control, so dangerous. So potentially evil. “I think…” Barry swallowed loudly. “I think my mom wants to talk to you.”

Cisco peeked out from between his fingers, eyes widening at Barry’s sudden change in demeanor. “What-what do you mean?”

Barry’s eyes glowed as he pulled his cowl back from his face. “Hello, Cisco,” a feminine voice said, although that could have meant anything. “My name’s Nora. I believe we have a lot to talk about.”

* * *

Cisco shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I’m a fae  _ prince?” _

“Well, yes,” Nora-in-Barry’s-body said pleasantly. “But you don’t actually have to do anything unless the Unseelie queen dies.”

Cisco’s shoulders slumped. He knew from school that the Seelie and Unseelie courts were both nigh immortal, but did that mean… “Can I die? Since the queen can’t?”

“Oh, you can die,” Nora-in-Barry’s-body assured him. “I just wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Thanks,” Cisco muttered. “I’ll try not to die.”

Nora-in-Barry’s-body laughed. “It’s fine. You’ll be fine, don’t worry.” She-er, they paused and tilted their head to one side. “I’m being called back. But Barry tells me that you’ve been doing very well. I hope you continue. Especially with what’s coming.”

“What’s coming?” Cisco asked, eyes wide, but before he could finish Barry’s eyes glowed and Nora was gone, leaving Barry alone in his own body. He covered his mouth with one hand, shoulders starting to shake with sobs.

Cisco left him alone to grieve.

He needed to think.

And maybe start learning some defensive and offensive spells.


End file.
